MSM Requiem

Peggy Noonan is by far the most intelligent columnist writing today. I say to any reader of the "hip" (and somewhat pathetic) Maureen Dowd to compare the two. Peggy nails it today:

Finally, one somehow gets the impression the writers of the Report thought proof of bias would be found in memos saying, "Comrades, we move against the imperialistic Bush Regime at 0800." Which is not exactly how it works. In any case those memos were not found. But maybe the writers of the report thought someone else would write about the whole sticky issue of bias. Like bloggers, who the report tells us have "a conservative agenda." That will surprise Duncan "Atrios" Black and Josh Marshall, but let it go.
...You can complain now, and your complaints can both register and have an impact on the story, as happened with bloggers and Rathergate. You can be a part of the story if you find and uncover new information. You can create the story, as bloggers did in the Trent Lott scandal. American journalism is no longer a castle, and you are no longer the serf who cannot breach its walls. The castle doors have been forced open. Other voices have access. Bloggers for instance don't just walk in and out, they have offices in the castle walls.
Is there a difference between the bloggers and the MSM journalists? Yes. But it is not that they are untrained eccentrics home in their pajamas. (Half the writers for the Sunday New York Times are eccentrics home in their pajamas.) It is that they are independent and allowed to think their own thoughts. It is that they have autonomy and can assign themselves stories, and determine on their own the length and placement of stories. And it is that they are by and large as individuals more interesting than most MSM reporters.

I feel I can't do a Noonan column justice by excerpting it; go read the entire thing.